July 2011 Bandsters!

[lizzy2150 3]

Ugh. My (stress-inducing) in-laws are here and already I've had a bad eating day--I ate a huge chocolate chip cookie. Every last crumb. *sigh* Better choices from here on out. . .

[BandedApril 0]

Well, the stomach pain feels better today, but the side pain keeps making a reappearance. It tends to happen after I eat or drink and then try to start moving around. Maybe I just need to rest before being active. Walking does not help. It just makes it worse. Maybe if I walked long enough it would help, but it hurts too bad to keep going. I'm a wimp!

April,

Does walking help at all? or make it worse?

Amy

[Serifa 10]

Maybe you should rest it for a day or two, then try more activity. I had open abdominal surgery a year ago and it took forever for the phantom pains to go away.

TMI: I'm on day 4 of post op and have started to have really bad diarrhea. I've read some older post and seems like it's normal. Hope it goes away soon! I'm going to start drinking Protein Shakes tomorrow to try to get something else in me.

Good Luck and hope your side feels better!

Well, the stomach pain feels better today, but the side pain keeps making a reappearance. It tends to happen after I eat or drink and then try to start moving around. Maybe I just need to rest before being active. Walking does not help. It just makes it worse. Maybe if I walked long enough it would help, but it hurts too bad to keep going. I'm a wimp!

[Sweetnurselyd 1]

Hi

Finally discharged today. Doing much better. Started clears last night and progressed nicely. I am having lukewarm tea for gas and I cannot drink anymore, too much.

I weighed in this afternoon before I left hospital and am down 13 pounds. Woohooooo. I will continue phase II on Monday is liquids, Protein Drinks, sugar-free pops, sugar free yogurt, skim milk, broth. For the rest of the weekend. just phase I which is strictly liquids.

I go for my first visit with surgeon on Friday. Looking forward to more exciting news once I get on the scale.< /p>

Good luck to all the new bandsters.

Lydia

[Tracy_1day 0]

Congrats Lydia!

Hi

Finally discharged today. Doing much better. Started clears last night and progressed nicely. I am having lukewarm tea for gas and I cannot drink anymore, too much.

I weighed in this afternoon before I left hospital and am down 13 pounds. Woohooooo. I will continue phase II on Monday is liquids, Protein drinks, sugar-free pops, sugar free yogurt, skim milk, broth. For the rest of the weekend. just phase I which is strictly liquids.

I go for my first visit with surgeon on Friday. Looking forward to more exciting news once I get on the scale.< /p>

Good luck to all the new bandsters.

Lydia

[ButterflyM 2]

Hello All, I was banded yesterday July 29!!!! I'm very pleased so far. I keep thinking this is the quiet b4 the storm!! Haven't had much pain, just a little (expected) soreness. I am waiting for the "horrible gas" I keep hearing about! lol I try to walk around the house for 5 mins every hour. Today I can have broth, flavored water, and tea. Broth never tasted so good! lol Got it form the chinese restaurant- plain. Yummy! Good luck to you all!!

[cat lady 10]

2 days post op and I'm doing pretty well. Just had a bit of won ton Soup broth and I am tolerating some juice mixed with Water nicely. I will probably finish one Protein Shake for the day. My diet is supposed to consist of 4-5 shakes a day PLUS 48-64 ozs of clear calorie free liquid consumed no faster than 2 ozs an hour. Yeah... ya'll do the math, its just NOT possible! lol...

My incision sites are still pretty tender and the gas pain has reached my shoulder but honestly... its tolerable. I'm taking my pain and anti nausea meds as prescribed and slipping off to sleep about an hour later until time to take more meds. Any major amount of walking will probably have to wait for another couple of days. I just don't trust the small amounts of fluids I have been consuming in this insane southern heat. 10 minutes outside hoofing it and I would be dehydrated and on the ground so I'm not gonna push it til I am able to get more liquids in. All in all so far so good. I hope everyone else who got banded on the 26th is doing as well or better. Every tick of the clock that goes by gets us one step closer to our goal. (((Hugs))) to ALL the July Bandits!!!:welldoneclap:

I too cannot seems to get in all the liquids required. Get nausea after too many Protein drinks. I had surgery Monday so I'm 5 days out. Cant wait for mushies.....seeing dr. on 8/8 and I think he will tell me then to move to mushie stage. If I can hold out!!!CAT

[Nouzi 0]

Hello All, I was banded yesterday July 29!!!! I'm very pleased so far. I keep thinking this is the quiet b4 the storm!! Haven't had much pain, just a little (expected) soreness. I am waiting for the "horrible gas" I keep hearing about! lol I try to walk around the house for 5 mins every hour. Today I can have broth, flavored water, and tea. Broth never tasted so good! lol Got it form the chinese restaurant- plain. Yummy! Good luck to you all!!

Congrats on ur band hope tht u dont go thru any tough pain... enjoy ur broth n keep us updated on how ur doing

[Serifa 10]

I'm day 5 and turned a corner. I just ate some very thinned cream of potato Soup. It was delicious. I'm doing so much better, I drove to the grocery store and went to the movies. Yesterday I was wondering what the heck I got myself into and today feels so much better.

I was very nervous eating the soup, it was my first full liquid since surgery (I've been on clear liquids). I just stuck the spoon in the soup and licked it off. It took a while, but I got it down. Hopefully, eating will start to feel natural, I'm so scared to stretch my pouch!

[lifeisjustbeginning2011 11]

Yeah!! That's great! I think most of us went through the paranoia of eatng mushies and then on to solids, but I didn't have a problem. I think it is totally normal to feel scared and apprehensive about it. We want to do everything right to be successful. One thing I did was keep to three "meals" a day, and write down my start and end times of when I was eating. I had Water or gatorade in between. When I was on mushies, this was really important. When I ate mashed potatoes (and oh how good they were), I was hungry MUCH sooner than if I chose something lower in carbs. I didn't realize how true the "carbs make you more hungry" rule really was! At first, though, eat whatever the heck you want that's allowed. After a few days, you'll naturally start to see the patterns and you'll want to change to different foods. I pureed the heck out of some chicken, mixed it with some Tomato sauce, and thought I was in heaven. As I'm going through the process, I'm blogging about favorite foods and recipes at each stage and my feelings in general. The link is below if you wanna check it out.

Best Wishes!

Amy

I'm day 5 and turned a corner. I just ate some very thinned cream of potato Soup. It was delicious. I'm doing so much better, I drove to the grocery store and went to the movies. Yesterday I was wondering what the heck I got myself into and today feels so much better.

I was very nervous eating the soup, it was my first full liquid since surgery (I've been on clear liquids). I just stuck the spoon in the soup and licked it off. It took a while, but I got it down. Hopefully, eating will start to feel natural, I'm so scared to stretch my pouch!

[ahassan 0]

Ok, well I got my first fill today!! Hopefully that will help with the hunger in between meals that I have been having but my Dr said not to stress if it doesn't. It might take more than one fill to get me to my green zone. Sooooo....my doctor doesn't do fills under fluoroscopy, they just stick the needle in there and wiggle it around to find the port lol. It sounds painful but it wasn't at all. Just a tiny little stick when the needle is inserted and then she moved to the center of the port and checked to see if I had any Fluid in my band already, I did....2cc's because I have a 14cc band. She says she drains it each time to check for any problems and to confirm how much is in my band. So she added 3cc's to that so I now have 5cc's in there. It sounded like with the bigger bands you have to have more cc's to get the restriction...not positive about that though. So I had to drink while I was still there....it felt fine. I am on liquids for 24 hours then can start back on solids. I go back in next month to see the nut and possibly get another fill. She also told me to step up my work out from 30 min a day to 60 . I hope I see some changes with this fill but if not, I'm just going to stay positive and know that it will work for me if I work with it

I had pretty much the same experience, except I had 5 ccs, and with the 3 ccs added, I now have 8 ccs. I still don't feel restriction, and am still hungry between meals, but it is a little better than before I had the fill. She said I can come back next week, if I don't feel much change.

[ahassan 0]

Ok, well I got my first fill today!! Hopefully that will help with the hunger in between meals that I have been having but my Dr said not to stress if it doesn't. It might take more than one fill to get me to my green zone. Sooooo....my doctor doesn't do fills under fluoroscopy, they just stick the needle in there and wiggle it around to find the port lol. It sounds painful but it wasn't at all. Just a tiny little stick when the needle is inserted and then she moved to the center of the port and checked to see if I had any Fluid in my band already, I did....2cc's because I have a 14cc band. She says she drains it each time to check for any problems and to confirm how much is in my band. So she added 3cc's to that so I now have 5cc's in there. It sounded like with the bigger bands you have to have more cc's to get the restriction...not positive about that though. So I had to drink while I was still there....it felt fine. I am on liquids for 24 hours then can start back on solids. I go back in next month to see the nut and possibly get another fill. She also told me to step up my work out from 30 min a day to 60 . I hope I see some changes with this fill but if not, I'm just going to stay positive and know that it will work for me if I work with it

I had pretty much the same experience, except I had 5 ccs, and with the 3 ccs added, I now have 8 ccs. I still don't feel restriction, and am still hungry between meals, but it is a little better than before I had the fill. She said I can come back next week, if I don't feel much change.

[Serifa 10]

Thanks Amy, I do check out your blog, it's very encouraging. Also, you have a great writing style!

Yeah!! That's great! I think most of us went through the paranoia of eatng mushies and then on to solids, but I didn't have a problem. I think it is totally normal to feel scared and apprehensive about it. We want to do everything right to be successful. One thing I did was keep to three "meals" a day, and write down my start and end times of when I was eating. I had Water or gatorade in between. When I was on mushies, this was really important. When I ate mashed potatoes (and oh how good they were), I was hungry MUCH sooner than if I chose something lower in carbs. I didn't realize how true the "carbs make you more hungry" rule really was! At first, though, eat whatever the heck you want that's allowed. After a few days, you'll naturally start to see the patterns and you'll want to change to different foods. I pureed the heck out of some chicken, mixed it with some Tomato sauce, and thought I was in heaven. As I'm going through the process, I'm blogging about favorite foods and recipes at each stage and my feelings in general. The link is below if you wanna check it out.

Best Wishes!

Amy

[Sweetnurselyd 1]

Congrats Lydia!

Thanks tracy.

Down 17 pounds

[Kate rules 43]

I'm way off wagon. Between late night hunger and my vacation, I'm up 3 pounds. I know I'm completely freaking out even though I know it is Water weight from TOM and Constipation, but the fact that I haven't lost in two weeks is enough to tell me I'm off track. I'm back in town and tomorrow I'm back to my routine. I'm so angry at myself! I'm so burned out after the big push I made to lose weight before surgery! What if I can't get it back together?